— I have taken your advice. I meditate for about fifteen - twenty minutes at night before saying my final dedication prayers... I have found, over the last week, that I have been falling asleep easier... Just that is enough for me to keep meditating. —

Mathew Ritchie, High Desert State Prison, California

— Even if someone has only one day left to live, even only one hour left, they still have an incredible opportunity to make the human body-which they have received just this one time-most beneficial. —

Lama Zopa Rinpoche

World Watch

In Court Ruling on Executions, a Factual Flaw

By Linda Greenhouse, The New York Times, July 2, 2008

WASHINGTON — When the Supreme Court ruled last week that the death penalty for raping a child was unconstitutional, the majority noted that a child rapist could face the ultimate penalty in only six states — not in any of the 30 other states that have the death penalty, and not under the jurisdiction of the federal government either.

This inventory of jurisdictions was a central part of the court’s analysis, the foundation for Justice Anthony M. Kennedy’s conclusion in his majority opinion that capital punishment for child rape was contrary to the “evolving standards of decency” by which the court judges how the death penalty is applied.

It turns out that Justice Kennedy’s confident assertion about the absence of federal law was wrong.